The impressive physical production deflects the jingoism, but there are better ways to honor our brave male and female warriors. The Blu-ray transfer is flawless; extras include directors’ commentary, deleted scenes, Seals interviews and several on-set featurettes.

Director Heitor Dahlia and writer Allison Burnett rely too much on the Silence of the Lambs formula (young woman overcomes male assailant and skeptics) but Amanda Seyfried is appropriately spunky in the lead. The hi-def transfer is excellent.

Despite Goon’s similarities to the far superior Slapshot, director Michael Dowse and writers Jay Baruchel (also in the film) and Evan Goldberg are canny enough to assemble a super ensemble including Liev Schreiber as the league’s reigning bad guy, Allison Pill as our goon’s gal and Eugene Levy and his incredulous dad. The movie looks quite good on Blu-ray; extras include interviews, on-set antics, and commentary.

In addition to the two major parks, other national monuments are also mentioned, giving an overall sense of the National Park System’s great breadth. The hi-def visuals are breathtaking, even if they are no substitute for an actual visit to any of these places.

In addition to the fabulous array of sets and inventive Martian creatures, there’s an appealing performance as the Martian princess Dejah by Lynn Collins; too bad our John Carter, the aptly named Taylor Kitsch, is as stiff as a board. On Blu-ray, Stanton’s expansive visuals are spellbinding; extras include deleted scenes, bloopers, featurettes and Stanton’s commentary.

Special effects are the order of the day, from a miniature elephant to monstrously large lizard eggs—and an even more monstrously large mother protecting them. It’s decent enough and, at 94 minutes, doesn’t ask much of your and your kids’ time. The Blu-ray image is excellent but sterile—all that CGI, obviously. Extras include a gag reel, deleted scenes and an interactive map.

A game bunch of actors does what it can, although Elizabeth Banks and Sam Worthington look faintly embarrassed, a slumming Ed Harris is stuck in a ridiculous role and newcomer Genesis Rodriguez was seemingly cast to fit her lithe frame into more tight outfits than Catwoman. The movie has a decent Blu-ray transfer; extras include a featurette and Banks commentary.

The first film, truncated from the original Japanese (and dubbed badly in English), isn’t the classic revenge adventure it could have been; the subsequent quartet at least has lots of bloodletting. The five films have a few visual problems in hi-def but are generally fine.

Colorful acting by Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin and, in his film debut, Kirk Douglas keep the melodrama from meandering. The classic B&W imagery is clear and crisp on Blu-ray; extras include a commentary and restoration demo.

These two productions show how much ambiguity is contained in the characters: the Virgin Classics disc, filmed in Madrid in 2010, stars the defiantly alluring American soprano Danielle deNiese; the Opus Arte disc, from Barcelona in 2009, has the regal Swedish soprano Miah Persson. Both women navigate the role’s tremendous dramatic demands, while Monteverdi’s music is well-served by conductors William Christie in Madrid and Harry Bicket in Barcelona.

If you enjoy this set, there are also a half-dozen previous ones to dive into. Extras include behind the scenes featurette and blooper reel.

A who’s-who of 1970s TV stars—Jason Robards, Andy Griffith, Cliff Robertson, Stefanie Powers, Robert Vaughn, Lois Nettleton, John Houseman—make this six-part program’s nine hours enjoyable; but melodramatic flattening prevents this from being a paranoid classic like The Parallax View and All the President’s Men.

Although Claude Debussy’s seminal trio is a classically French work (it sits alongside Ravel’s and Faure’s), it’s a pair of unfamiliar works that Trio Chausson really takes to: Cecile Chaminade’s beautifully wrought trio and—an even more obscure gem—Rene Lenormand’s vaguely exotic, thoroughly melodic work.

The bland result includes earnestly sappy tunes (“Lucky That Way” and “Family Way”), the title track with lame lyrics like “Turn on the tube/watch until dawn/100 channels and nothing on,” and a tongue-in-cheek nod toward his past in “Funk 50,” which only reminds us how hard-rocking Walsh was way back when. I didn’t expect a sequel to his underrated 1985 gem, The Confessor, but Analog Man lacks punch.

Too bad that somnambulant performances by Teri Polo, Dermot Mulroney and Julian Morris still make Voigt seem to be a bit jumpy, and the unoriginal storyline does none of the cast any favors. Visually, at least the dreary and snowy Alaskan environment, well-captured by the photography, has been transferred nicely to Blu-ray. 

Read more: June '12 Digital Week I